Great. Now I have absolutely no way to answer question 1 and I’m going to go
ahead and assume the answer to question 2 is “no”.

The skills section is not meant to be an inventory of every piece of technology
you’ve ever touched. Everything in that section should be both:

Relevant to the job for which you’re applying

Something about which/in which you’d be comfortable answering an interview question

Anything else is just noise that distracts the person reviewing your resume. So,
get rid of all the languages of which you don’t have a working knowledge. For
most people, I expect this will do the job and get the list down to 1-3
languages. If you truly are a programming language polyglot, then there are a
few strategies that I can suggest:

Group Similar Technologies Together

For example, we could rework some of the languages in the example above as follows:

Skills: C/C++, HTML/CSS, Javascript/Node.js, Python

This is much more believable to me, despite still being pretty extensive. Here,
the skills are grouped into 4 distinct skills, despite being 6/7 distinct technologies
(depending on whether or not you actually distinguish Javascript and Node).
Further, as a developer, I don’t really question any of the groupings because I
know that they are actually related.

Divide by Expertise

Alternatively, you can list a wide swath of languages if you make it clear which
ones are your strongest. Something like this is common:

Skills: (Experienced) C/C++, (Familiar) Ruby, HTML/CSS/Javascript

Now I can easily see that “Oh this is a C++ dev who’s done some WebDev”. That
said, don’t use this as an excuse to just dump everything in your “Familiar”
section. As I said earlier, you should still focus on relevant technologies
that you actually have experience with.

Tailor Based on Company

Probably the best method, though, is to tailor your skills based on the company
and position for which you are applying. Most companies list the tech stack
they use on the positions page. Be sure that you actually know those languages
and then be sure they are highlighted in your skills section. Obviously, this
requires more work on your end, but it will almost definitely pay off. When I
see a candidate that lists our entire tech stack on their resume (which is
listed in plain sight on the job description) they’re almost a shoo-in for an
interview. (Seriously, read the job description, it’s like cheat codes for
getting an interview.)

Closing Thoughts

The idea of “quality over quantity” extends far beyond the “Skills” section
of your resume. It applies equally to your projects and your past work
experience. It’s generally more useful to market yourself as a highly-skilled
individual in the domains that are relevant to the company than as a
jack-of-all-trades.

If you want more advice like this, head on over to Debug My Resume for in-depth feedback and advice, personalized for your specific
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Will Ganucheau

I'm a full time software developer and recruiter as well as
the founder of Debug My Resume,
a service dedicated to helping aspiring software developers
improve their resumes so that they can stop getting
ghosted and start getting technical interviews.